Whose quagmire?

Mark Steyn on the politics of Iraq. Put Steyn in the Clinton camp when it comes to how the Democrats should not be playing this one (i.e. the way they are playing it). Here are some highlights:
“Dean, Gephardt and about half the other Democratic candidates still live in the real world–or, more to the point, their would-be constituents do. These candidates are obliged to be, in Bill Clinton’s words, ”politically viable.” At the BBC and Le Monde and the Sydney Morning Herald, anti-Americanism is the New Universal Theory: It explains everything; it’s the prism through which every event is viewed. But it’s an unlikely strategy for American electioneering. One anti-Bush Democrat at a protest the other day carried a sign reading ”FRANCE WAS RIGHT!” That’s not a winning slogan, even in Vermont. What happened this week is a foretaste of what the party can expect in the next 15 months: Reality will keep intruding, and if the Dems keep moving the goalposts ever more frantically, pretty soon they’ll be campaigning from Planet Zongo. This week, Tom Daschle insisted that Odai and Qusai were all very well, but where was the Big Guy? Why hadn’t that slacker Bush caught him yet?
Will Saddam be tracked down as his sons were? Very possibly. Will the military nab another 10 playing card dudes? That’s almost certain. You got to know when to fold. This week, Bush’s two aces beat the Dems’ Niger joker. That’s the way it’s always going to go. . . .Bill Clinton got it right. Democrats need to move on. If they’re still droning on about Niger on the day Rummy’s passing out souvenir vials of Saddam’s DNA, they’ll be heading for oblivion. . . .Whether or not the Clinton tack would work, the Dean-Chomsky-BBC-French strategy never will. When the last Baghdad supporter of Odai and Qusai sounds like Howard Dean’s running mate, you know you’re off the map.”
Courtesy of Real Clear Politics